Racism makes the continuing production of nuclear waste possible. If
the white people who make decisions about nuclear waste felt that the
people of color in poor areas are as valuable as the decisions makers'
own mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, would they continue
to dump nuclear waste in those areas? If tailings from uranium mining
were located next to the homes of investment bankers instead of the
homes of indigenous people, would uranium mining continue?

The continuation of the nuclear cycle depends, on effect, on the
practice of human sacrifice. It depends on affluent whites deciding
to risk the health and lives of people who are not affluent or
white. This is what "acceptable risk" often means in practice.

Mildred McClain,
an African American who organizes her neighbors in Savannah River,
Georgia, against the unsafe storage of irradiated nucle fuel rods near
their homes says there is nothing new about what is happening
there. "It's plantation politics."